holding it close to his face and frowning at the words written upon it.
I marched up to one of the vacant tables and by way of greeting wished the two clerks there the peace of God. The clerk on the left replied with a similar blessing and then asked who I was and what was the nature of my business that day. I told them that I was Sir Alan Dale, an English knight of Westbury in Nottinghamshire who had recently been attacked by thieves in the streets of Paris, and that I wished to lodge some monies with the Templars that could be redeemed at the London Temple at some future time.
The clerk on the left nodded and asked if I had any money already lodged here in the Paris Temple, or at any other Templar preceptory, and when I admitted that I did not, he said that it was no matter and then explained the procedure to me and told me that a small charge would be levied for the service. The clerk on the right said nothing but scratched away on a scroll of parchment, presumably recording the size of the deposit and my personal details. I duly handed over three pounds of Tourangeaux silver from my money belt and the clerk weighed the entire silver horde on a set of scales in front of him, bit into several of the coins gently with his incisor teeth and noted the depth of the indentations, and muttered something to his fellow clerk that I did not catch. Finally, he counted the money out into stacks of twenty coins — each stack with the value of one shilling. The clerk then arranged the shilling stacks into three rows, with twelve stacks in each row — which made up a pound. And when he had finished this ordering, he again murmured to his colleague, then looked up at me.
‘These coins were minted by Count Bouchard of Vendome and I’m sorry to say they are a little debased.’
I looked at him, mystified.
‘They have been debased with lead,’ said the clerk. I was still none the wiser. ‘Some lead has been added to the silver in the smelting so that more coins may be minted from a certain weight of silver bullion.’
‘Are they no good?’ I said, suddenly alarmed.
‘They are not the worst I have seen, nor yet the purest coinage either — do not be perturbed, sir, they still have a certain value, but if you took them to London you would not be able to exchange them for the equivalent weight in sterling silver English coins.’
‘So how much will I get in London if I hand them over to you here and now?’
The clerk conferred with his colleague; again, irritatingly, I could not hear what was said between them.
‘We will give you four sterling silver pennies for every five of your Tourangeaux coins; and there will be our fee of three shillings in addition to that. Do you accept our offer?’
‘So what will I receive in London?’
The clerk did not hesitate this time — he had made the calculation entirely in his head: ‘In London you will receive two pounds, one shilling and sixteen pence.’
I was taken aback, this business was going to cost me nearly a pound. I could well understand how the Templars had amassed such riches. If I accepted their offer, I would have walked into this hall with three pounds and be walking out with a piece of parchment worth only a little over two. But I nodded my head and through gritted teeth agreed to the deal. I was worried that if I refused I would look foolish, unworldly. The Templars had a reputation for scrupulous honesty and I reminded myself that I would be exchanging my lead-tainted Tourangeaux coins for sterling silver, and that the risk of my being robbed on the way home had been eliminated. The risk that I was being robbed right here and now in this airy hall, however, I did not like to think about.
I waited no more than half an hour, pacing the long hall and staring up at the high arched beams that held up the roof, and then the clerk summoned me back to his table and showed me a parchment letter, some of which was written in fine, clear Latin, including my name and the manors I held, and some in a gibberish of Latin letters and numbers all jumbled up so that it made no sense to me at all, but which the clerk assured me would be the key to releasing my silver when I presented the letter to the Templar knights in England. Then he folded the letter, placed it in a water-proof pigskin pouch that he sealed with wax and presented to me with another blessing for a safe journey.
The first person I saw when I walked out of the Counting House, feeling somewhat dazed after what had just transpired and a good deal lighter around the waist, was Sir Aymeric de St Maur, the Templar knight who had threatened me with fiery torture the year before, and the man who tried to have Robin burned at the stake for heresy.
‘Sir Alan,’ he said, ‘I had heard that you were headed for Paris, but what great joy indeed to run into you here.’
And his mouth smiled.
Chapter Fourteen
I am never at my best when I run into people unexpectedly and refined conversation is required in an instant and, I confess, I gawped a little at Sir Aymeric before I managed to clasp his outstretched hand and summon enough wit to pretend that I too was delighted to have encountered him. At the back of my mind, a fierce debate was raging: was his presence here outside the Counting House, on the day that I had chosen to visit the Paris Temple, a coincidence? Or did he have some sinister design in mind? He had every right to be here — more than I did: he was a Templar, he had only been following Richard’s army as an observer, and now that a truce had been declared, it was only natural that he should take the opportunity to visit his brethren in Paris. But I was not convinced. At Sir Aymeric’s shoulder, stood Sir Eustace de la Falaise, his dull-witted lieutenant, who beamed at me as genially as ever. I dipped my head in salute.
‘Are you in Paris for long?’ Sir Aymeric was asking. ‘If you are staying for a while, then I would take it as a great boon if you would dine with me. I should very much enjoy your company over a good meal — with some decent wine. And I have something I wish to discuss with you.’
I found Sir Aymeric’s affability disconcerting. We were not friends, in any sense of the word; nor yet jolly dining companions. I had attached myself to his diplomatic mission into Vendome out of necessity — not because I sought his company. What was wrong with the man? One day he was threatening to have me writhing under red- hot irons, and the next asking me to dine and drink heartily. Was he touched in the head?
‘I shall be in Paris for a few weeks,’ I said, smiling stiffly at him, ‘but I am not sure of my plans exactly.’
‘We must make it soon, then,’ said Sir Aymeric. ‘Let us say a week from today, at noon. If you come to the main gate and ask for my apartments, the Brother Sergeant will show the way. Excellent! It’s settled. Till we meet again.’
I said, ‘Ah, well, you see…’ but Sir Aymeric was already striding away. Sir Eustace smiled cheerily at me: ‘God be with you, sir,’ he said, and went after his master.
You may ask why I did not protest further, or call out after them that I would not be available — but the simple truth is that I did not think of it at the time. My wits were scattered by his suggestion that we should break bread and drink wine together, and I was quite disarmed by his friendliness. Besides, why not dine with him? I wished to know more about the Templars, and here was a potential ally who might enlighten me about the knights of the blue cross.
Or have me murdered.
In the event, when I walked over to join Thomas and Hanno by the horses, the first thing I did was to tell them that I would be returning at the same time the following week: for a feast with a Templar. The first thing that Hanno said to me was: ‘They are here — these knights of the blue cross have a place here in this very stronghold. Our enemies are Templars, Sir Alan, I swear it.’
We waited until we were well clear of the Paris Temple before I allowed Hanno to speak. ‘They have many chapels in that place, many, and I go in one, a small one to the north of the hospital, and say a prayer. It is an old chapel, made before all this new building is happening, I think; very dusty, not so well cared for now, but dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. And when I go inside I see their shields, two of them hanging on the walls, old ones, the faces very faded. But I saw the blue cross in a black border, for sure. And so I begin to look around the chapel, I search it, and I find a little stone, set in the wall by the chancel for the remembrance of a dead knight: Rodrigo of Leon. The stone was carved and painted, and bore the knight’s arms and the blue cross and black border. This dead Spanish knight is a member of an order: the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Our Lady and the Temple of Solomon — it says so on the memorial stone. And I think this is the order that the knights of the blue cross also belong to. And I think
